Story
Hayami Keigo, a promising young heart surgeon at a university hospital, is made to examine patients at a clinic in the mountains during the summer under an order from his superior, Professor Sawaguchi Tetsuo. At a harsh environment more than 2,000 m above sea level, the clinic set up by Professor Kuraki Yasunori back when he was a houseman, is only open in the summer but has just a few testing equipment and medicine. This insignificant mountain clinic is a culture shock and setback for Keigo who is active in advanced medical care and the use of cutting-edge equipment. This is a place detached from modern medical care where doctors make all diagnoses by touching, looking at and talking to patients. Megumi, suspected of having an accumulation of fluid in the lungs, and Okamura, who took a tumble from the mountain trail, are brought to Keigo who has assumed his post early. Unable to bear watching a hapless Keigo, the nurse Hirahara Akari seeks the help of Oyama Haruka, the daughter of the mountain lodge owner.

CharactersMukai Osamu as Hayami Keigo
A promising heart surgeon at Akiyoshi University Hospital who graduated from Akiyoshi University’s faculty of medicine with honours. He is confident, but high technology is all he has. He believes that cutting-edge medical technology and equipment is crucial for the advancement of medicine. His father died early and because he was raised single-handedly by his mother, he got through the university on a scholarship. He is the fiance of Professor Sawaguchi Tetsuo’s daughter, Mika. So it came as quite a shock to him to be told by Sawaguchi and others to go to the mountain clinic. The place he leaves for is only a clinic in name for it neither has decent medical equipment nor medicine. Through his encounters with the daughter of the mountain lodge owner, Oyama Yuichiro, and others, he confronts what is medical care and the role of a doctor.

Ono Machiko as Oyama Haruka
The daughter of the owner of the mountain lodge, Ryogadake Sanso. Her mother died in a mountain accident when she was young. The nurses who worked at the clinic were like surrogate mothers and good confidants to Haruka when she spent the summer in the mountains each year. Because of that, she naturally chose to become a nurse and fulfilled her dream. However, she questions medical care that demands efficiency and is torn between her ideals and reality each day. She works as a nurse in the emergency ward, but an incident spurs her return to the mountains where she meets Hayami Keigo.

Koike Keiko as Hirahara Akari
A nurse who loves the mountains and has been working at the mountain clinic during the summer for the past 12 years. She is a reliable presence to the young doctors who come from hospitals as well as the patients. She continued her job as a nurse after marriage and childbirth, but her husband cheated on her, and she is now considering divorce. She regards Oyama Haruka as a younger sister and keep in touch even when she is not on the mountains.

Sasano Takashi as Oyama Yuichi
The owner of the mountain lodge, Ryoga Sanso and Oyama Haruka’s father. He has watched over the mountain and its climbers for close to 40 years. It has been his long-cherised wish to have a clinic on the mountains because it distresses him to have people die in the mountains each year. He has been single ever since his wife died in an accident on the mountainis when Haruka was young, but remarried Yukino three years ago.

Tokito Saburo as Kuraki Yasunori
A professor at Akiyoshi University Hospital and the person in charge of the mountain clinic. Every year, he picks various students and brings them to the mountains. He loves mountains and is a fan of astronomy. So, he built a Dobsonian telescope between the mountain lodge and clinic. There are many medical students and young doctors who admire him, and also a lot of voices supporting him to be the next university president. But he is completely uninterested in the title and rivalry between factions. He belongs to the same batch as Akiyoshi University Hospital’s Sawaguchi Tetsuo.

Matsushige Yutaka as Sawaguchi Tetsuo
A professor at Akiyoshi University Hospital and a cardiovascular surgeon. He is slated to run for university president in the upcoming elections. Although he is an excellent doctor, he is one of those who regard medical case as a business too, and thinks that the mountain clinic which makes no business sense, is not needed. And so, he goes out of his way to dispatch Hayami Keigo, whom he acknowledges as an outstanding subordinate with great potential, to the mountains to report how unnecessary the mountain clinic is.

Nakada Yoshiko as Hayami Etsuko
Hayami Keigo’s mother. She raised him single-handedly after her husband passed away. She is proud that he attended university on a scholarship and has a promising future. Because of her easygoing personality, she has absolute faith in what Keigo says and decides to undergo a thorough physical examination at his urging, but … …

Ichikawa Yui as Sawaguchi Mika
Professor Sawaguchi Tetsuo’s daughter. She is in love with Hayami Keigo and they are engaged. She is a well-off young lady who is inexperienced in the ways of the world, but is a kindhearted person.

Totsugi Shigeyuki as Nomura Kyosuke
The son and heir to the hospital where Oyama Haruka works at, he not only practices medicine but also runs the hospital. An ambitious man who shows pragmatism towards medical care and management, and desires to expand the hospital.

Miura Rieko as Oyama Yukino
Oyama Yuichi’s second wife. Haruka did not object to the marriage but it bothers Yukino that she has never once called her “mother”.